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An anonymous reader writes "The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. 'I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,' he said."

It's pretty amazing, and here's hoping the sacrifice isn't completely wasted. The fact that this stuff hasn't led to protesting in the streets really reflects just how complacent the US population is. Or how afraid of the government we really are, knowing just how well equipped and militarized the government has become thanks to 60+ years of growth in the military-industrial complex. I for one am ashamed I voted for Obama in 2008, and I hope there's a clean sweep of every Congressperson who didn't specifically oppose this type of stuff during the next elections. If that doesn't happen, I think the government will just treat it as a mandate to continue expanding their global power ever faster. Something needs to happen while people's attention is still focused on it.

It'd be nice if the public vitriol towards the current administration also helped Manning avoid further abuse, but I'm not holding my breath.

It'd be nice if the public vitriol towards the current administration also helped Manning avoid further abuse, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, my belief is that most of that vitriol is just "useful idiots" being steered by people with interests that favor a panopticon state at least as much as the current administration does. I expect to see "bi-partisan support" for excoriating Snowden and all the others.

I cringe because of that "I can't do nothing" feeling that is being felt by so many people today

So, we are just going around and sit in front of our compute screen (or look on our mobile devices) and let Mr. Snowden become the next sacrificial lamb ?

If the Arabs are so brave as to stand up against their tyrannical leaders, if the Turks are so brave to tell their "elected dictator" to fuck off, why can't we, the Americans, the supposed "Braves" who live in the "land of the Free" ?

Have we, the Americans, become pussies ?

As an American, I am damn proud of what Mr. Snowden has done

He has given back to me, the hope for my country

I left my country, America, a decade and a half ago, because I could see no hope no more, but now, Mr. Snowden has given me the hope, that my country is worth fighting for

No more shall I be scared by fuckers in Washington

No matter they are Democrats or Republicans, no matter if that guy in the White House is Obama or any other person, if they fuck my Constitution, I am going to fuck them back

And I have the duty to do so, yes, not only the right to do so, but the DUTY, as an American citizen, to take back my government from those motherfucking tyrants !!!

Revolt against the government is an act of desperation. The people of the USA are not desperate, they still have too much to lose by fighting. So long as the US government ensures most of the people have something to lose they won't revolt, regardless of what happens.

I'm afraid that without the unpleasant consequences of martyrdom the standard social inertia cannot be overcome. It is the brutality of the oppression of the martyr that incites the rebellion, not his call for social change. The martyr accepts that he's going to be oppressed and acts for change anyway. That is what makes martyrs special. We had this need long before the time of Jesus and I don't expect an end to it in my lifetime.

The law is wrong and needs to be changed. He did, in fact, break the law: he divulged state secrets entrusted to him under threat of severe penalty for disclosure. I believe he did the right thing, but it was still illegal. If you have strong moral convictions but not the will to expose yourself to punishment you should avoid this situation because the internal conflict between your will to do the right thing and your fear of punishment can drive you insane. In that case you are not martyr material.

Since this is the NSA he had to know they would find him - that's what they do. By outing himself he probably avoids some extrajudicial retirement. Nobody from here out is going to believe he locked himself in a duffel bag [time.com], or died of autoerotic asphyxiation [dailymail.co.uk], or overdosed on bath salts.

I'm not saying that he should be punished - only that he will. They'll get Julian Assange one day too, even if his punishment is to be hunted to the end of his days. By dragging it out so long that the defiant act becomes disassociated in the public mind with the tyrannical punishment the authorities may be doing themselves a favor and blunting the rebellion. But eventually Caesar gets what is Caesars until Caesar is no more.

Anyway, what do you care? By your own account you fled. You should probably fix or prevent the problems in your new home wherever it is. All politics are local. If things get too tough in your new home you can always find another one more to your liking. People who flee tyranny also do not martyrs make. Fleeing tyranny is for most the wisest course until there is no place to turn. If you've go the wit and will to make it anywhere and lack anchors like family and tradition, going to where the field is ripe with berries and the wolves are more like dachsunds is just smart. Win wherever you are! If things are going like you think our generation's version of the underground railroad is going to need another end. By building up resources to shelter refugees you can be that end. That seems to be a role you're more suited to than taking up arms against the tyrant.

Actually, failure to vote for third parties is the primary reason they're able to get away with stuff like this. The whole "wasted vote" thing is probably the most damaging logical fallacy being used in politics right now. Don't get me wrong, it's unlikely a third party will ever win a presidential election, but that's not the point. When politicians are losing enough votes to them that they risk losing to their opponents, they're forced to change their platforms. You can see this happening already with the Republican's reconsideration of immigration reform. They know the tide is against them and they'll have to make policy changes they haven't wanted to in the past. Aside from that, only about half of the population actually votes. There are literally twice as many people who aren't even going to the polls than there are supporting Democrats or Republicans for any reason. If the left was losing 10% of their voting base to the Greens and the right was losing 10% of theirs to the Libertarians (or whatever other party you may like), you can bet they'd be picking up pieces of those platforms in order to continue out-competing third parties.

tl;dr: Voting for the proverbial "lesser of two evils" is the mandate we give them to get away with all this crap. Neither side is less evil than the other anymore.

It feels good to vote for somebody instead of voting against somebody, doesn't it? The difference may seem subtle but it really isn't. I've been voting pretty much third party for well over 30 years now. I admit that it hasn't changed much of anything but it does feel good to be comfortable while looking in the mirror. I can confidently, honestly, and proudly state that I've never once voted for the winning president.

The state of affairs is such that I've even skipped the presidential nominee section of the ballot because the third party candidate was also unable to meet my criteria. I don't think my criteria is all that hard, say what you do and do what you say. Have a history of making good choices that benefit the people around you even if it means self sacrifice. Be open, honest, and communicative. Show compassion but be capable of making tough choices. Have an articulate plan for leading my country and minimizing the risks of harm to the citizens thereof. Demonstrate that you have an understanding of worldly affairs and articulate your plans for dealing with them.

Seriously, that's about it. Depending on those answers I can then decide if that person is best suited, out of the pack though I'm willing to write a candidate in, to represent me and my interests while also ensuring the welfare of the citizenry as a whole is effectively looked after.

Is it seriously so difficult to research the candidates and make reasoned choices based on your actual ideals instead of the political party from which they hail? Is it that difficult to examine your own self, find what form of governing you feel best suits your ideals and your fellow citizens, and then vote accordingly without regard to a political platform? Is it so difficult to see that the two major parties are not, in fact, diametrically opposed on many things and that the things they share most are jack-booted hunger for power, oppression of dissenters, and authoritarianism?

*sighs* I suppose that last sentence may seem a bit much. When I say both parties, I mean both parties. When I say that I judge the left more harshly that's because I do judge them more harshly. I am a member of the left-leaning voting populace. I hold them to a higher standard because, frankly, they should be more intelligent than they often demonstrate they are. The right has plenty of smart people in it but they're cut from the common cloth in much of the country and intellectuals have typically been left leaning. I don't assert that the right is stupid as a way to slander, I assert that the left is not as intelligent as they claim to be nor as intelligent as they should be and that it is unfortunate. Both sides are being played by people who have money, power, and prestige. They have absolutely no intentions of diminishing any of that and will continue their invasive quests of authoritarianism while continually eroding our rights by redefining words and intent in the Supreme Court.

Deny it, if you want, but the evidence is there and quite clear. Control of a nation, perhaps a planet as the US isn't unique in these regards, isn't usurped by a single act nor is it done overnight. It is a slow process implemented for your safety, your health, and because they know best. The Left has been excelling at it for quite some time now and their method is beautiful in that they constantly scream how it is the Right that is doing these things. It is the Left that demands you alter your behaviors, that you adhere to the same beliefs they do, and that works to deliberately silence the opposition. It is sad because I lean left and, frankly, I am tired of the lip service paid to freedom, liberties, and the value of either. Just come out and be honest, "We wish to control you because we want the power to decide." The right should do the same, though I'm pretty sure that's common knowledge at this point.

I think I'll close this with a fun piece of trivia, mental bubble gum if you wish, the first use of the "Free Speech Zones" was by the Democrats.

Sometimes people do vote for third parties, but I haven't seen major changes caused by that, either. Did Ross Perot have any lasting effects?

Well, Perot's candidacy did prove that people will vote for a third-party candidate they feel is viable. Also it proved that a third-party candidate with enough financial backing can get attention. At one point Perot was polling higher than either Clinton or Bush. If he hadn't fucked up his own campaign, Perot might have done much better than the 18/19% he got.

You ask for lasting effects however, for that I point to the increases in signature requirements for ballot access by states across the US, and the current exclusion of third-party candidates from Presidential debates. Seems that Rs and Ds don't like competition.

George W. Bush may well have been a terrible President. The world may have been a better place had he not been President.

But you're reciting the stupid mythology made up by the Democratic party 13 years later.

Well, we did have 8 years of President Bush as a result of a third party candidate bleeding votes away from Gore...

Newsflash: Gore and Bush both made numerous decisions during their campaign that had greater impacts than anything Nader ever did. Blaming the loss of an election on a 3rd party is just buying into the two-party BS rhetoric that's trying to trick you into voting for them.

Just for one example, take the Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush. Approximately 12% of registered Florida Democrats voted for Bush -- roughly 200,000 voters. This is a significantly larger number than all of Nader's votes combined, including Democrats, Republicans, and independents who voted for him.

When a greater number of your own party defects to vote for "the other guy" than all of the 3rd party voters combined, I don't think you get to blame the 3rd party voters. You blame the guy who lost for not being a better candidate and for failing to convince members OF HIS OWN PARTY to vote for him. You blame the voters who actually voted for Bush. The 3rd party voters were a much smaller effect than anything done by the two major parties here.

(Granted, Bush was more the GOP members of the Supreme Court being corrupt and helping Bush out,

Good lord. This nonsense again. The actual situation is complicated, and thus the Democratic spindoctors have convinced people like you of a false narrative even 13 years later. Here's what actually happened.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 (including two "liberal" justices) that the recount in Florida had Constitutional problems. The only place where the five "conservatives" come into it is in the remedy. The five "conservatives" looked at a ruling by the liberal Florida Supreme Court just made a few days earlier, where the Florida Supreme Court interpreted state law to say that all recounts should be finished by date X. Given what the liberal Florida court said, the US Supreme Court decided that it was impossible to complete a recount according to Florida law since it was already date X.

Now, from a technical legal procedural standpoint, the appropriate thing to do here would have been to send the case back to Florida and let the Florida court say, "Yeah, we can't do any more recounts now," even though they had already effectively set the date. Instead, the US Supreme Court set the remedy themselves, which is a bit unusual.

Nevertheless, the US Supreme Court then remanded the case back to Florida. The Florida Supreme Court could have turned around and said, "Well, no, actually our ruling didn't mean to set date X." The Florida court did no such thing.

Gore's lawyers could have requested another hearing and made arguments that Florida law didn't say that and the Florida Supreme Court's ruling on date X was wrong. Gore's lawyers did no such thing.

A week or two later, instead, the Florida Supreme Court actually dismissed the case, thereby officially ending any recounts. The US Supreme Court did NOT "decide the election" or even officially "end" it.

Given that Gore and the liberal Florida court didn't contest the US Supreme Court's citation of the Florida court's ruling about date X, we can safely assume that Gore and Florida didn't think there was any legal argument to stand on in disputing the US Supreme Court's ruling.

In other words, while there were a couple procedural oddities about the actions in this case, the actual liberal parties involved chose not to contest the ruling... and, in fact, it was originally the liberal Florida court's interpretation of Florida law that set the deadline the US Supreme Court followed.

Actually, failure to vote for third parties is the primary reason they're able to get away with stuff like this.

What third party? Do you really think that would make any difference? Under the current system anyone elected is controlled or made irrelevant. Until the money is removed from the electoral process this won't change.

you can bet they'd be picking up pieces of those platforms in order to continue out-competing third parties

One of Obama's primary platforms was "Open Government". That worked out well, didn't it? Kinda hard to make an informed decision when most of the important information is secret and anyone who exposes it is thrown in jail or worse (see Bradly Manning).

What third party? Do you really think that would make any difference? Under the current system anyone elected is controlled or made irrelevant. Until the money is removed from the electoral process this won't change.

Money is a symptom, not the disease. There's so much money precisely because there's so much federal power available to buy. Until political power is radically decentralized, this will not change.

Actually, failure to vote for third parties is the primary reason they're able to get away with stuff like this.

It's a commonly held theory that the two party system is to blame for something such as erosion of our privacy and rights in America. However, it seems to me that the evidence utterly shreds this notion: countries like the UK have more than two parties, yet they have the same problems.

I've never heard a good explanation as to why a third party in the US would solve problems that we see in countries WITH third or more parties.

I'd suggest it's the voters are stupid and paranoid and get the government they deserve, independent of party structure or number.

I can't honestly say any of the realistic alternatives were better; by that I mean people who might have survived the GOP primary process.

What I think we can say is that Obama isn't a good man or a good leader. Take everything else away and he is hypocrite at best a strait out liar at worst. I err on the side of the liar. Why? Well all the apologists, including the president himself, are running around saying how you have all these grand ideas like 'transparency' and then you confront the realities of the office. They usually go on to say anyone disagreeing with that is just a pol as all of our Senators and Representatives are supposedly aware of these programs. Well guess what Obama was a Senator when the initial authorizations for these programs were made.

So its pretty impossible to excuse him on that grounds of 'realities of the office', either he knowingly told the public he was going to push for transparency when he never had any intention of doing that and continues to lie about that today or he is a naive boob. Either way the man brings shame to the Presidency.

The fact is transparency is needed. National security is NOT an excuse for secrecy out side of a very very short and narrowly defined list. That might be designs for weapons systems, capabilities and deployments of weapons systems, deployments of troops, personally identifying information about government employees and citizens, and probably nothing else.

The whole point of national security is to protect the nation. Part of the nation is our republican system of government. Well you can't have a representative government that is in any way democratic if people can't use the ballot box to judge the actions of the incumbents. People can't make good judgements when so much of what government actually does is classified and kept secret. Frankly I don't think its unfair or out of line to call what the folks at NSA, CIA, DOJ, 1600 Penn. are doing "un-American activities".

Actually, most of this stuff, the basis for it anyway, goes back to Eisenhower.

During the cold war the NSA was focused on the Soviet Union, which was an actual real threat to our national security. There is little evidence that the NSA was engaged in domestic spying during that time. Today the NSA, and all this surveillance, is focused on stopping some hermits in Afghanistan from talking to a few guys with a pressure cooker full of gunpowder. Meanwhile, our diplomatic relations with China and Russia have deteriorated, and we have very little idea what is going on in Iran or North Korea. Remember last month, when the Chinese Red Army was identified as actively behind cyber-spying? It was some gumshoes working for a private company that tracked it to a specific building in Shanghai. Meanwhile, the NSA, with their 30 billion dollar budget, was busy reading your email and monitoring grandma's phone calls.

FISA was written in the late 1970s after the public found out that the NSA and CIA (sometimes in cooperation with the FBI) were snooping on domestic postal and fax transmissions. Only then did Congress pass laws and rules which ostensibly prohibited the NSA or CIA from operating domestically. Prior to that the only thing preventing them from operating domestically was the FBI protecting their turf.

In all likelihood, it was probably only the Nixon debacle which primed the public to actually reject this kind of snooping. Today we might just roll over. Then, like now, there are too many apologists and protectors of the police state, and not enough level-headed people willing to reject it. Perhaps the Tea Party radicals might actually be worth something, or maybe they'll just provide an easy excuse to ignore the naysayers as conspiracy theorists.

Perhaps the Tea Party radicals might actually be worth something, or maybe they'll just provide an easy excuse to ignore the naysayers as conspiracy theorists.

I do think that could be one possible positive outcome of the Tea Party, if it could be channeled into an anti-surveillance political force. An engagement with techno-libertarian issues has historically been a weakness of American libertarianism, which is to a large extent based on imagining sparsely populated frontier localism: no taxes, let me keep my rifle, I'll fight off the government with my militia when they come, etc., etc.

Mostly it's ignored the information sphere and the need to keep any sort of pervasive surveillance state from being built, and has been relatively disconnected from considering what freedom might mean if you live in a modern city, rather than a sparely populated frontier. Not everyone has ignored it, of course, but it's gotten comparatively little focus, compared to guns & taxes.

Unfortunately, in my corner of the country (Texas), I see some signs that nativist worries are interfering with anti-surveillance instincts. It's not everyone, but a lot of tea-partiers around here have gotten the idea that some crazy pro-police-state ideas are not so bad, if they keep the Mexicans out. Everything from drone patrols of the border to regular ID-card checks to employment databases seems to be seen as a potential aid in the War Against Illegal Immigration, whereas to me all that is a lot scarier than the illegal immigration is.

I can't tell you where I am, suffice to say that I am posting this comment from outside of the United States of America, and my primary task is to penetrate some of the more virulent Islamic circles to obtain info on the global jihadist movement

However, the danger of the Islamic terrorism can not, and should never, be used to justify the destruction of the Constitution of the United States of America

Guess you didn't RTFA. He was going to blow the whistle but held off when Obama got elected because he hoped things would change, instead, they only got worse. Please understand that the "left vs right" thing is just a distraction. Both parties are happily taking our liberties away.

Guess you didn't RTFA. He was going to blow the whistle but held off when Obama got elected because he hoped things would change, instead, they only got worse. Please understand that the "left vs right" thing is just a distraction. Both parties are happily taking our liberties away.

More specifically, the people involved in creating programs like this transcend any particular election cycle.

Its not the parties doing it, on either side. Its the inertia of huge organizations following misguided policies stacked on policies, most likely created by people who really believed it was the best thing for the country.

"Do less" isn't an idea that creates a motivation for change, so time will always trend these sort of things into doing more and more.

Sounds good, but what this has to do with Obama being Bush's protege and Obama apologists I don't know. Obama sucks not because he hasn't figured out how to get us out of a recession/depression (lots of Presidents wouldn't figure that out, plus it's not the President's job to write the budget, it's Congress's). He sucks because he made a lot of good-sounding promises, such as to have a transparent administration and to stop warrantless wiretapping and spying on American citizens, and as soon as he was elected he did a U-turn and just copied Bush's policies on surveillance, wars, and marijuana enforcement (actually, marijuana enforcement was more lax under Bush; Obama's been much worse), plus he's gone after whistleblowers with a vengeance.

Wrong. Obama has the unilateral power to make lots of changes:1) wars. As commander-in-chief, he decides if troops are to be deployed or not. He hasn't exercised his option to avoid going to war at all.2) the drug war. The AG (who is Obama's stooge) has the unilateral power to decide which drugs are on the "banned" list. If they wanted to legalize marijuana, Obama/Holder could do so tomorrow. But instead they've stepped up anti-marijuana enforcement at the federal level.3) prosecuting whistleblowers and being transparent: Congress has no power here, it's all on him.

Stop being an apologist for Obama. Yes, there's many things that he has little to no power over, but there's lots of things he has absolute power over, and he consistently does the wrong thing.

As commander-in-chief, he decides if troops are to be deployed or not. He hasn't exercised his option to avoid going to war at all.

He put an end to not one, but two wars and refused to go to full out war in Libya and Syria. That seems a radical difference with the previous holder of the oval office to me, and very much exercizing that option.

. If they wanted to legalize marijuana, Obama/Holder could do so tomorrow. But instead they've stepped up anti-marijuana enforcement at the federal level.

Funny that you mention marijuana, because he has done exactly that:

CNN: President Barack Obama says that federal law enforcement agencies have "bigger fish to fry" than prosecuting marijuana users in Colorado and Washington, which voted in November to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. (late 2012)

or much earlier than that:

Although federal criminal law does not have an exception for the medical use of marijuana, several statements made by Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and their spokespeople in 2008, 2009, and 2010 reflected that the enforcement of federal criminal laws against those complying with state medical marijuana laws would not be an enforcement priority.In 2011, U.S. attorneys and the office of the Attorney General backtracked on prior statements, indicating that larger-scale providers could be targeted, but that enforcement against patients and those caring for them would not be a priority. Here is a collection of statements from Barack Obama, his spokesperson, andthe Department of Justice on federal law enforcement and medical marijuana.

Your last one:

prosecuting whistleblowers and being transparent: Congress has no power here, it's all on him.

He's also had Bush's Congress to work with. As much as I wish he'd done better, I look at the GOP and it's fixation on introducing bills to ban abortions and I understand why the country is so fucked up. The folks making the laws are morons.

Bush's Congress? You mean control of both chambers of Congress with supermajority control of the Senate?

Sorry, Jack. That don't fly. Obama had absolute control of Congress and chose not to touch this issue.

Most of this stuff dates back to the Bush Jr. administration... But hey, go ahead and blame the black guy.

At least you are consistent:When Bush was president and we learned of secret courts used to authorize snooping under FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) when one of the ends of the connection was based overseas, you blamed Bush.

Now that Obama is president and he snoops on all calls within the US using the same FISA (FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance Act) law, you blame Bush.

Bush is out of office and cannot effect any changes on this at this point, so why are we harping on Bush and absolving Obama? Yes, Bush started it and gets blame where blame is due, but Obama ran on a platform that included dismantling this program. He changed his mind and actually ramped up the program from what information we are getting now.

Obama has the power to stop this but he doesn't so he deserves all the blame we can throw at him.

It makes me wonder how much control the government really has over its agencies. Can the president or Congress really rein in the NSA, the FBI, the army? Increasingly we are learning that these organizations are powers unto themselves and have little loyalty to the government (much less the people) they supposedly serve. If Congress was to order the NSA to stop, would they really do so? Would they even pretend to stop? And what would we do if they didn't?

That's funny... you believe there was any difference between the two? Exactly how could Romney have been any worse?

Romney wasn't an running in the 2008 general election, perhaps you meant McCain/Palin?

That aside, I suspect you're right, that the Republican wouldn't have been much worse (or much better) on the national-security-vs-privacy issue. There really does seem to be a bipartisan consensus in Washington that mass monitoring of phone/email records is acceptable.

However, that's not the only issue that people care about. For example, a Republican president would have been significantly worse in terms of clean energy policy (which is important to me), and would have taken very different approaches on other things like health care, gay rights, taxation, social spending, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Regardless of your position on those issues, they matter, perhaps more than this one, and people rightly take them into account when voting.

2) You do have to wonder what that meeting is like when a new president is briefed on the all the shit nobody else knows about.

I have a story, 2nd hand, and now third to you, so take that from a random slashdot user for what it's worth (absolutely nothing).

Guy I met a few times in college (we'll call him R) was good friends with my very good friend (call him S). R was very involved with the Republican Party at the local and state levels, wound up as an assistant to the state Secretary of State, and he did a ton of work on the Bush campaign in 2004. His reward for that was as an assistant to the National Security Advisor.

After the transition in 2009 R has drinks with S and tells him this story, and S told me. I have met R, and I know he did in fact hold this position. I don't have any reason to think he'd lie to S, or that S would lie to me. Still, take it for what's worth (nothing).

So when the transition is going down, obviously there are a lot of meetings between the outgoing and incoming administration. For one of these, R is told to go retrieve some documents from the State department. An armored vehicle shows up at the White House, R climbs in with four marines, each fully armed. They drive to the state department, inside, into a sub basement where R is given a locked briefcase which is handcuffed to him. They go back to the White House, and R has the distinct impression that the marines are not there to guard him from some attack on their trip. They're there to shoot him if he tries to tamper with or open the briefcase.

At the White House, R meets with Bush and Obama, and Bush tells R to give the briefcase to Obama. The marines unlock the handcuffs and case, and step back. The contents of the case are for the president's eyes only. They step back, and Obama opens the case and reads the documents. The obvious joke is that Obama went white, but that's basically what happened. Bush looked at Obama and said, "Well, you wanted it. It's your problem now, fucker!" And then the briefcase went back with R to the state department.

Obviously he has no idea what was in the case, and I have no way of verifying this story. No matter what it was it doesn't justify the police state we've become. But still, you do wonder about the shit they know that we never will.

Why are you not out there protesting? Why are you waiting for others to do it? Right there in the article is your call to arms: " I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act."

Grab your supplies, head out, start protesting. Don't wait for others to do it first. If our forefather's had, we'd not be here now.

I lack confidence in my ability to start an actual protest by just going out and sticking up signs on a street corner. Also, I'm more of the mind to develop technology and acquire wealth and resources so that I can one day actually have influence in the world, which does honestly seem more effectual than protesting. I made the comment because, as someone else noted about this stuff already, there are violent protests going on in Turkey (and other parts of the world) right now over far less egregious abuses

Why are you not out there protesting? Why are you waiting for others to do it? Right there in the article is your call to arms: " I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act."

Grab your supplies, head out, start protesting. Don't wait for others to do it first. If our forefather's had, we'd not be here now.

Back when I was 25, I had nothing to lose. Now, I can't really afford to lose the house that my family depends on trying to fight off an IRS audit. Even though I've done nothing wrong, I can't afford what it would cost to prove that against a government agency with unlimited funds, time, and ruthlessness.

"It is not like Occupy Wall Street but there is a grassroots movement to take to the streets on July 4 in defence of the Fourth Amendment called Restore The Fourth Amendment and it grew out of Reddit. The response over the internet has been huge and supportive."

You do not have to be ashamed of voting for Obama. Perhaps you can be ashamed of voting. Who you vote for is irrelevant as long as you have a two party system. All they do is share the power you hand over.

You make it sound like your vote would have mattered. You have a one party system with two separate arms with different names. The "other guy" would have done exactly the same things.

And population that is too busy trying to pay for the life style it's been told from birth it needs to maintain to be "a decent human being" can't afford to protest. Debts would crush their lives if they tried.

The fact that this stuff hasn't led to protesting in the streets really reflects just how complacent the US population is. Or how afraid of the government we really are.

I personally think this whole scenario instead proves just how afraid governments are of us.

It somehow reminds me of the Soviet Union, which was so out of touch and terrified of its populace that it used to jail poets and painters. Now the US government is so afraid of its populace that its mining people's fucking Facebook logs and mobile phone conversations.

I do. The American education system is based on a design intended to produce soldiers and factory workers. But we've got a shortage of factory jobs... No Child Left Behind only accentuated the problems already existing in the American education system; meaningless testing which is largely ignored, a curriculum full of lies, class sizes which prohibit meaningful student-teacher interaction, and a lack of cultural support for education (promoted by our idiocratic media) which defeats the best efforts of well-meaning educators are probably the least controversial and most frequently acknowledged problems in education today.

I know one former California educator who was handed a paper detailing their responsibilities under the NCLB mandate. If everything went perfectly, no bathroom breaks and no personal attention to any student, there were fifteen minutes too few in the day to comply with the mandate. They threw the paper on the floor and walked out, and quit shortly thereafter.

without truly independent oversight from the public these programs will just grow as much as their budgets will allow.

You can say that about any government program. And since men with guns will ultimately take away anything valuable you have to satisfy the greed of the state, their budgets can theoretically grow until we all go broke.

So the American reporting on Europe should change, where they call "socialist" countries "socialist" when they are centrist, from a local perspective, and the less socialist socialists are "right wing" because the definitions all change to fit every locality? Does it matter if "right" and "left" are from France? Why are you using them in the first place, if they only hold local meaning?

He doesn't seem to be planning to: "I do not expect to see home again".

One plus of outing himself in Hong Kong is that if he suddenly gets disappeared or extradited, it makes China look like U.S. puppets, which they bristle at. So they may opt to protect him, whether directly or by running U.S. extradition requests through endless bureaucracy. We'll see, I suppose.

It's a sad day when an American has to go to China for Sanctuary for reporting violations of the Bill of Rights.

No shit. It's like living in some kind of "Homeland" or other dystopian-future-themed computer game.

I guess the old "reality is stranger than fiction" truism still stands.

Maybe China or Russia will actually end up sending arms and funding to a future American resistance movement like the US has been doing around the world regarding rebels fighting against unfriendly regimes for many decades.

Don't compare Manning and Snowden they are very different situations. Snowden didn't indiscriminately leak 10's (or was it 100's) of thousands of classified documents and message traffic, most of which weren't event remotely related to the primary issue(s) he was so upset about, he is\was no whistle blower.

In contrast Snowden leaked a few specific docs\ppt slides, just enough to show the existence of something, just enough to allow those in congress who already knew about it to be able to now be able to deb

The Supreme Court even ruled [wikipedia.org] that you can constitutionally be found guilty of aiding terrorism if you provide assistance to a group that is considered terrorist, even if it's assistance unrelated to terrorism. For example, in that case, the Humanitarian Law Project wanted to advise groups like the Kurdistan Worker's Party about how they should renounce terrorism and turn towards a peaceful path... but that would still be considered "assisting" them.

Sliding? Hell... We're FALLING at terminal velocity towards a police state... I'm 63 years old and unless I die in the next year or so, perhaps much less than that, I'm gonna see the country I love torn by civil war, and become a Soviet-style police state. I weep...

Dude thanks, what you've done requires real courage and people like you change the world for the better. You will probably be dragged through the mud. That inteligence aparatus which you helped build and outed is working right now very hard to get dirt on you, and will probably succeed. If there is no dirt to be gotten it will be manufactured.

I think coming out into the public was the smartest thing you could of done, i doubt you will be rendered because the damage is already done. Discrediting you is about the most they can do in damage control ATM.

They've learned (i hope) from the Manning case that locking you up into the loney bin and psychologically torturing you just make it worst. You've just surendered your remaining expectation of privacy to save ours, and for that i thank you sir.

look, the last thing we need is yet another whistleblower rotting in prison or blackballed from their profession.

People are all "oh, this is so noble". Uhm, yeah. Its noble, and thousands of other people have already done it, and they suffered immensly for it. Go read some books by actual whistleblowers. Imagine making $50,000 a year and then going down to minimum wage because its the only job you can get after you get blackballed. Imagine you lose your health insurance, your house, and you have to go into debt to pay lawyers to keep you out of prison.

Imagine your wife, family, friends, being raided by the FBI with guns. Imagine getting stopped at every airport checkpoint, train station, etc for the rest of your life.

Imagine never working in your field again.

Imagine a large number of your friends just drop you. No contact. No calls. No meetings. Nothing.

Thats what a lot of whistleblowers face.

Oh, how noble. But if this guy was makign your french fries or bagging your groceries, would you say "oh how noble" to him? or would you continue your day to day condescending attitude towards those who have to live outside the system for whatever reason?

This guy should have hid under a fucking rock and let the NSA and FBI go fuck itself for 10 years trying to track down the leak source. Just laugh at them from the shadows.

It reminds me of the story in Mandela's autobiography. There were a lot of anti-apartheid activitists who operated purely out of some messianic belief they were right. Well, the enemy used this, and decimated them. They went to prison. They disappeared. They got murdered. Most of all, they didnt contribute to the continuing battle. They are like Petya Rostov in War And Peace, all heart and no brains. They might have done something admirable, but they didnt actually help win the battle or the war because they were no longer around to fight anymore.

Now, the enemy, the NSA, or FBI, can just take this guy and swallow him into some prison.

Bull fucking shit. I own a technology company and I'd hire this guy in a second, and there are thousands of other business owners like me across the country who would do exactly the same. He's got more integrity and courage than just about anyone I've ever met.

You are confused about his oath to support and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. Also about the lessons of Nuremberg.

Going to Dianne Feinstein's office would have just landed him in jail. Yeah, maybe Rand Paul's office would have helped out, but still there's a non-zero chance of just landing in jail instead of getting word out about these enemies who have infiltrated the government.

1) The Inspector General would have done nothing. This was not a tiny program by some rogue field office. This was a widespread program that was approved by the (toothless) Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. It had the backing of pretty much the entire DoD, and I'm sure all the appropriate BS memos were on file at the DoJ.

2) Congress knew about it already, and did nothing.

3) Why does it matter which country the media organization was based in? Why was calling up the Guardian and having them publish it somehow different than the New York Times doing so?

4) If he's a spy, he's really shitty at it. He's a whistleblower in every sense of the word.

5) He didn't have a huge number of choices in places to flee to. Most of the countries that would ordinarily protect someone making such a disclosure are US allies with bigger diplomatic fish to fry than protecting him, making an asylum application problematic. (Of note is that the program he disclosed would not have been illegal in most "free" countries.) He could have fled to some 3rd-world $hithole, but in those countries it'd be easier to simply snatch him off the street. Hong Kong is not the worst choice out of a whole pile of bad options.

That said, if the PRC government gets a hold of him, they will indeed pump him for all he's worth and then publicly shame him as a defector. Here's to hoping going public before that happens insulates him somewhat from that.

So, on the balance we have individual privacy (with huge implications) and FBI's investigating ability (let's face it – that's very important for our society too).

What about this scheme: NSA collects everything they can put their paws on, but people's records get encrypted right away (separate public key for each individual); keys for decryption go to escrow of some kind. So when FBI wants the data on a particular individual, they present the case to a judge who unseals the data if he sees it fit.

So, no fishing expeditions, no witch hunts (everything court related is on the record), and safe against leaks.

He is a far better (and more effective) patriot than Bradley Manning; definitely more like Daniel Ellsberg.

Manning (and Wikileaks) dumped a huge pile of classified information on the internet with little regard to the consequences of their actions. Material that any thinking observer would regard as quite sensibly classified, and discussing no sort of malfeasance or wrongdoing, was revealed. This gave the government ample cover to prosecute Manning with little fear of popular outrage. Real (and innocent) people had their lives hurt (and probably ended) by Manning's leaks. He's essentially getting tried for treason, and the government has ample reason to do so. The fact that he was motivated by moral outrage isn't really relevant, as much of the information he revealed had nothing whatsoever to do with the things he was unhappy about. (And Assange going on an ego trip didn't help.)

This man, on the other hand, copied a very specific and small set of documents revealing something that every thinking citizen does indeed have a right to be angry about. He put nobody in danger (unless you subscribe to the "If the all-seeing-eye doesn't know everything, the terrorists win." school of thought.) The documents he revealed are all directly associated with what he's unhappy with. No actual investigation details (current or past) have been revealed, no names are mentioned, and he's neither hiding nor chasing the spotlight.

He appears to be a principled and thoughtful patriot, and I think despite their best efforts, they'll have a tough time demonizing him for the public, although it won't be for lack of trying. If they do capture him and put on trial, and he will almost certainly lose. Despite him doing the right thing for the right reasons, this is not a strange or ambiguous application of the Espionage Act. His only hope would be for a successful court challenge to the programs he has disclosed, but given the current proclivities of the Supreme Court, that is unlikely, to say the least.

While it will be little comfort, I believe history will vindicate him.

As a side-note, here's the tactic I suspect they'll use to publicly disgrace him and distract the public from the documents: They'll argue that he was not, in fact, motivated out of a noble desire to advance our civil liberties, but rather tried, and failed, to sell secrets to the PRC. (No sense in claiming the PRC actually bought them... that'd pointlessly shame them for something they didn't actually do. (for once.)) They'll claim he has a lot more secrets in his possession than the ones he's revealed, and that those other secrets contained stuff that should have stayed secret. (Of course you can't know what those are, because it's too dangerous to tell you...)

This will be effective, because they don't actually have to reveal their evidence (or lack thereof) for such a tale during trial. His confession is already more than enough to convict him under the Espionage Act.

(All this said, the PRC was an odd choice... I'm not sure he had any good choices, as the program he revealed would have been legal in most of the countries he otherwise could have fled to, but he's going to be called on to elaborate a little further beyond waxing poetic about the peace-and-freedom loving people of Hong Kong. Personally, I would have picked Sweden or Finland; they're neither an enemies of the US nor members of NATO or reliant on the US for anything in particular. They are, however, harder to hide in.)

I was a teaching assistant for a university-level ethics class for several semesters while in grad school, and by any definition of whistle-blowing we ever covered in class, Manning failed to meet the criteria. He certainly leaked information, but leaking information does not make one a whistleblower. In most ethical definitions, a whistleblower is someone who releases the information necessary to avert a specific threat to the general public, by providing evidence that would convince a reasonable person that the threat is both credible and that the release of the information is necessary to avert the threat.

Manning merely dumped a load of data with no regard for (or even an awareness of!) what was contained in his dump, then bragged about what he had done afterwards, which led to his identity being revealed. He cited no specific threat that was to be averted through his actions, took no steps to ensure that no one would be harmed through his actions, and failed to assemble a compelling body of specific evidence to convince most reasonable people that there was a credible threat or that he was acting in the best interests of the public at large. He leaked, but he didn't whistle-blow.

In contrast, Snowden revealed nothing that can directly endanger anyone, released the minimum amount of information necessary, and was responding to a specific and ongoing threat to the rights of the public at large. The only other aspect of ethical whistle-blowing that is usually required is that the whistleblower seek to address the problem via the chain of command before taking anything public, and I'm doubting he did that, since we've heard nothing of it so far. Even so, given the nature of the groups involved, I can't blame him for disclosing first, since we've all seen movies where "accidents" occur. With the information already public, killing him now would yield no benefit and would only raise a lot of questions.

The efforts to discredit him have already begun, but I hope that his actions will lead to a groundswell of support that will eventually displace the folks doing this sort of thing.

Manning, Wikileaks and the papers involved (including the Guardian, the same paper as in this case) didn't dump a whole load of material. They went through it, and attempted to remove information that might have been damaging to actual people. They asked the DoD to help. The DoD refused.

Wikileaks and the various papers published selected material, little by little. They didn't just dump it all on the Internet. (The fact that at a later date it was all dumped wasn't anything to do with Manning.)

So, give me a cite for "Real (and innocent) people had their lives hurt (and probably ended) by Manning's leaks." Because I don't believe it.

And the rest of your post is as bullshit. Manning is a humanitarian, a true hero. That this man is also a hero doesn't detract from Manning's heroism.

That's why you insist on Jury trial and educate the Jury that they have the power to findthat he met the legal requirements for conviction under the law, but NULLIFY the convictionby returning a solid NOT GUILTY. This is how our system is supposed to work whena law is passed that is more harmful to society than had the law not existed.

But the Jury is not required to demonstrate this; they're only to return a verdict.

surprise, there is no law making it illegal to give this type of information to a reporter.

why? this information has nothing whatsoever to do with "national defense information" which is the standard of the Espionage Act. not 'classified'. But National Defense Information. and its not illegal to leak classified information.

These programs have little to nothing to do with national defense. They are domestic spying which the NSA shouldnt be involved in at all.

Therefore they are not a violation of the espionage act.

What other law could we be dealing with? The CFAA? Hell, this guy may have had every right to access this information, therefore he didn't break the CFAA.

Not to mention that, the Whistleblower laws can in theory protect people when they are uncovering blatant illegal activity by government employees.

I guess the NSA already knew his name, and he figured that he'd be safer if the public knows it, too. If a person with a name nobody has ever heard of disappears somewhere in Hong Kong, nobody will care too much. If the person who is known to have leaked the NSA documents disappears, it might make the media notice.

He wanted to go on the record to verify the authenticity of the leaked documents, that they were not altered in any way, and to confirm that what the documents state is actually happening. It was just a matter of time before the gov't figured out his identity, so at least now he has a chance to tell his side of the story in face of all the denials coming out of Washington.

This isn't about political correctness or about getting "offended", by the way. I don't care if you want to joke about racial or gender stereotypes, for example. Those kinds of jokes can often be quite funny, without a doubt.

But where is the humor in a man, potentially one who hasn't even done anything seriously wrong, repeatedly getting his rectum painfully torn apart by one or more thick, erect penises while in prison?

Where is the humor in that man possibly getting AIDS, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, or any number of STIs?

Where is the humor in the mental anguish that such a man will very well endure, not only during the attacks, but for the rest of his life?

Where is the humor in all of this physical and psychological harm?

There is no humor in it at all. That is why prison rape is something that should not be joked about. It's just not funny.

I don't get offended by many things, but I don't think it's humor, and that's why I don't like it. I know too many people who say of convicted felons "I hope he drops the soap a lot" and whatnot. Lots of people see prison rape as a valid part of one's punishment, and it's wrong.

It's called "black humor". It's funny, but in a horrible way, and reminds us what horrible and inhumane places US prisons are.

I don't think so. There is practically no public discussion of just how fucked up the prison system is in the USA. It is just jokes like the OP. It took more than 20 years of me hearing FMIA jokes about prison before I ever considered what it all really meant for the people who have to suffer it and I like to think I am more attuned to thinking about this stuff than the average american citizen.

I get that all humor is rooted in suffering, but we need a lot more people shooting down the FMIA jokes with the sober details of what is essentially legalized torture. Until that happens FMIA jokes aren't a way of coping with the horror, they are a way to avoid acknowledging and fixing it.

China doesn't, but Hong Kong does. They retained roughly 90% of everything they had when the British owned the island, and there's protests if not small scale riots every time China tries to do something to change well...anything.

Has it ever occurred to you that most people who are against this type of snooping do not doubt the program's effectiveness of stopping terrorists but are simply not willing to trade their liberty for safety? "Give me liberty or give me death" has turned into "Take my liberty for a little bit of safety".

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
This guy saw the direction that the NSA and other agencies are taking and, at considerable personal cost, took a stand.
I applaud his actions and hope we can have a meaningful discussion about where we're heading as a species. Maybe you're comfortable with the government knowing so much about you, whom you talk to, what you do on the internet, where you spend money and so forth. I'm not.
As for your "Islamist hordes" comment - you should probably lay

"The disclosure by a person, usually an employee in a government agency or private enterprise, to the public or to those in authority, of mismanagement, corruption, illegality, or some other wrongdoing.

Since the 1960s, the public value of whistle-blowing has been increasingly recognized. For example, federal and state statutes and regulations have been enacted to protect whistleblowers from various forms of retaliation. Even without a statute, numerous decisions encourage and protect whistleblowing on groun

The Whistleblower Act will be no protection whatsoever. For that to work, the program he disclosed would have to be found illegal. Given that the Supreme Court won't even summon the balls to agree to hear a case about far-more-egregrious warrantless wiretapping, the likelihood of the program he disclosed being found unconstitutional is approx. zero.

Without a ruling that the program was illegal, he puts himself firmly under the jurisdiction of the Espionage Act, and his confession makes a chance of conviction approx. 100%.